Waiting for Price to talk health IT

WAIT AND SEE: HHS Sec. Tom Price made his usual attack on Obamacare in a Sunday appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation," said a replacement bill would be out "very very soon," and dodged when asked if the roughly 20 million people covered under the ACA would still be. “Our goal is to make sure that every single American has access to affordable coverage,” Price said. He wants to make sure "we incentivize innovation and empower patients through both transparency and accountability." The White House has signaled to House Speak Paul Ryan it will embrace his health care bill this week, and aides are working to get a marked-up bill ready, POLITICO reported this weekend.

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Price traveled to Wisconsin and Ohio last week to stump for ACA repeal, and talked to governors and health insurers at the White House. He has visited with the NIH, FDA, CMS and ASPR, and took a trip to a local children’s hospital.

One thing he hasn’t done yet: meet with ONC staff.

But don’t despair, health IT fans. Price’s pick for the No. 2 position at CMS, to be announced after the Senate confirms Seema Verma as CMS administrator this week, is a health insurance lawyer who had a hand in starting the ONC.

... Demetrios Kouzoukas served as principal associate deputy secretary at HHS under the George W. Bush years with an emphasis on health IT policy overseeing ONC and several other agencies, according to his bio on the American Health Lawyers Association. “Demetrios was indeed highly involved in a number of our efforts,” said David Brailer, who was the first ONC chief under Bush. “He is smart, thoughtful and results-oriented. I think highly of him.” More here for Pro subscribers.

Tweet of the Day:Planet HIPAA (@PlanetHIPAA) Fun Fact: The 7 Recently Discovered Planets Do Have Life But Unfortunately None Of Them Are #HIPAA Compliant!

COUNCIL TO MITRE CORP: LaVerne H. Council, who put the VA on a path toward purchase of a commercial EHR during her 18 months as CIO there, has been named senior vice president and general manager of MITRE's Center for Connected Government, said Jason Providakes, the outgoing manager, in a letter to the giant research non-profit’s employees Friday. Council will start working at MITRE April 3. At the VA she was responsible for a $4 billion budget and more than 16,000 employees and contractors; she previously held big jobs at Johnson & Jonson, Dell and Ernst & Young.

WILL MISSOURI FINALLY GET A PDMP?: The Missouri state Senate has passed a bill to create a statewide prescription drug monitoring program. The bill, which would make Missouri the last state in the country to install a PDMP, was introduced by Rob Schaaf, a privacy hawk and family doctor who has been fighting PDMPs for years. Critics say the program it calls for isn’t strong enough — the Missouri State Medical Association calls it the “fake PDMP bill.” The bill, which passed the state Senate on a 20-13 vote, would use an algorithm to identify doctor shopper and then let physicians see the patient’s data, but it highly restricts physician access. A rival bill introduced in the Missouri House would let physicians access the information as they prescribe and would be monitored by the state Department of Health. Democrats say that mini-PMDPs that have sprung up around the state are already stronger than the one Schaaf proposes. St. Louis County is building a PDMP that will be active by the end of April and will include Cole, Jackson and St. Charles counties as well. The St. Louis program and other county-wide PDMPs would roll into a statewide PDMP if one ever gets off the ground.

THIEL UNDERLING TO SPEAK FOR TRUMP ON TECH POLICY: President Donald Trump has tapped Michael Kratsios, a top aide to Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, to serve as one of the administration’s top voices on technology policy. Kratsios is taking the position of deputy chief technology officer and deputy assistant to the president, two sources familiar with the matter tell POLITICO Pro Technology. The Trump administration has yet to announce who will serve as its chief technology officer, a job held in the Obama administration by former Google executive Megan Smith. More details here.

CMS SEEKS ACO PARTICIPATION: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has opened its online application portal for participation in the 2018 Next Generation Accountable Care Organization Model. Letters of intent are due by May 4, with narrative applications due May 18, and provider lists and service areas by June 9. More details here.

BLOCKCHAIN IN BOSTON: In the Harvard Business Review, Beth Israel Deaconess CIO John Halamka and colleagues discuss a pilot project using Blockchain to share patient information. “Traditionally, the interoperability of medical data among institutions has followed three models: push, pull, and view, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses,” they write. “Blockchain offers a fourth model, which has the potential to enable secure lifetime medical record sharing across providers.” More here.

WHAT WE'RE CLICKING:

Health IT Now on why now is the time for the new administration to fix health IT. And how.

About The Author

Arthur Allen is the eHealth editor for POLITICO Pro.

Becoming editor of eHealth at Politico marked Allen’s return to the newsroom after 18 years of solitude (apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez). As a freelancer beginning in 1996, he wrote for publications and websites such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate.com, Landscape Architecture, Global Health Matters, Science and Mother Jones. He also wrote three books, the last of which, “The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl,” comes out in July 2014 (buy your advance copy now!) Once upon a time, when the hairs on Allen’s head were as numerous as pissants on a melon stalk, he was a wire service reporter. He toiled for The Associated Press for the better part of 13 years, including stints in El Salvador, Mexico and Germany. Allen is married to Margaret Talbot; their son heads off to college soon but for now they still have the company of a teenage daughter with impeccable taste in music and style. During Allen’s non-wage earning hours, he may be found playing pickup basketball, studying Polish, reading 19th century novels, or hunting fruitlessly for morels and other edible mushrooms.